Harris Corp. wins $42 million to provide all-weather imaging payload onboard new military spacecraft

Posted by Courtney E. Howard

MELBOURNE, Fla., 21 Dec. 2010. Harris Corp., an international communications and information technology company, won a 30-month, $42 million contract from Sierra Nevada Corp. to supply antenna and radar electronics for a satellite that will provide military commanders in the field with timely, high-resolution radar imagery of the earth's surface, regardless of weather conditions or time of day.

Harris engineers will design, build, and integrate the synthetic aperture radar (SAR) satellite payload for Sierra Nevada as part of NASA's Rapid Response Space Works and Modular Space Vehicles program for the U.S. Department of Defense's (DOD’s) Operationally Responsive Space (ORS) Office. ORS is a joint NASA/DOD initiative with the charter to field modular payloads rapidly and inexpensively.

The payload architecture, designed to support a new family of modular military satellites, offers flexibility to support multiple missions with minimal changes in the basic design, says a representative. SAR is the second payload to be developed by the ORS Office and will produce high-resolution radar imagery of the earth's surface, even during darkness or inclement weather.